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- The thriller Absentia starring Stana Katic has hit Netflix’s top 10 after originally airing on Amazon Prime Video
- The series follows FBI agent Emily Byrne, who returns after six years of captivity to find her life turned upside down
- Viewers praise the show for its intense and dark storyline, although some find certain scenes difficult to watch
Have you ever thought that the Jason Bourne series should actually be a TV show starring a woman? Well, you’re not alone, because so did the creators of Absentia – well, with the memory loss bit sort of reversed.
The thriller, which originally aired on Amazon Prime Video, has now arrived on Netflix and is already being gobbled up by viewers on the platform, having entered the top 10 list of TV shows on the service.
All three seasons are now available to stream, starring Canadian actress Stana Katic, who will be familiar to fans of the long-running crime mystery show Castle.
Katic plays Special Agent Emily Byrne, who was officially declared dead by the FBI after she went missing six years ago in Boston.
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But she’s just shown up, after six years in torturous captivity. But since the serial killer she was investigating at the time was thrown in prison, who could be responsible for her ordeal?
She hasn’t forgotten the life she had beforehand, but everyone else in her life has moved on without her.
Emily’s husband and fellow Special Agent Nick (Patrick Heusinger) has remarried and their son has adopted his dad’s new wife as if she’s his own mother, shunning visits to mum Emily’s grave. Does the fact that it’s not actually her grave make it less bad?
All the while, Emily’s horrific ordeal (parts of which do play out on screen and aren’t for the faint of heart), has left her with terrible PTSD.
Emily angrily tells her husband Nick upon her return: ‘You’re not the one who was taken. You’re the one who is f***ing someone else.’ (He did think she was dead…)
But she’s fired up and comes back from the dead intent on reclaiming her family. She ends up fighting for even more than that when she becomes the prime suspect in a string of grim murders.
What other thrillers can I stream?
- The Beast In Me. A woman starts to suspect her new neighbour murdered his wife, so she decides to write about it. Starring Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys.
- All Her Fault. Takes viewers into the psyche of every parent’s worst nightmare. Like The Missing before it, this heartbreaking drama revolves around a child who is abducted.
- The Asset. The crime drama lays out an intricate web of deception behind the scenes at Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service.
- Blindspot. Starring Ross Kemp. When a woman vanishes from the estate where she once saw a murder, a CCTV operator spots an eerie connection and digs into a case no one will touch.
The show, which has a rating of 7.2 out of 10 on IMDb, has gone down particularly well with Castle fans, who came to Absentia for Katic.
On a Reddit thread dedicated to the show, @Impressive_Season_75 said: ‘I loved it! It is absolutely super dark and intense.’
@Minute-Might4258 admitted they watched the show ‘in parts’ because of its graphic material.
‘I cannot stream it all at once. It’s good but it’s very dark. Sometimes I skip scenes if they’re too much for me,’ they wrote.
Absentia is available to stream on Netflix.
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